They merge. They interpenetrate. The thread of one weaves into the fabric of the others. “Fracking” operations rush past law, past regulation, past health and environmental concerns. Supporters of ‘quick cash’, gas ‘futures’ pass corporate-written law to silence land-owners, elected councils, voters ... you and me.

Hydraulic Fracturing is the intensive assault on shale, and coal beds, through multiple well bores (often invading water tables) to release marketable gas. “Fracking” uses giant amounts of sand, water, toxic chemical-mixes near the surface or miles down to fracture strata - ‘fracking’ - for marketable gas.

The commonly named ‘radioactive threat’ is only now starting to be researched. A. Rich, E.C. Crosby, University of Texas [New Solutions, Vol. 23 (1), 117-135, 2013] reveal (in layman’s language) that a cocktail of radioactive agents are set free especially by ‘unconventional’ (‘fracking’) gas operations. Radioactive agents are found in depositories [sludge storage, waste pits, storage pools] - AND in the land no longer used for those purposes.

“Out of Control: Nova Scotia’s Experience with Fracking for Shale Gas”, Report Summary, April 2013” reports that from the few test wells undertaken radioactive materials were found to be present “only several years after drilling and disposal of some of the waste….” (p. 4)

In Alberta, (using Joyce Nelson’s words) “the government has introduced draconian legislation (Bill 2) that would strip landowners and others of their right to object to any energy project that would adversely and directly affect them.” (Watershed Sentinel, Jan-Feb, 2013) The determined action envisioned in Bill 2 is doubtless a response to Jessica Ernst’s $33 million lawsuit against Encana Corporation and Alberta’s regulator. And so - one may conclude - is the switching of judges on her case. And so is, one may conclude, (what I would call) the concerted delay engaged in by Chief Justice of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, Neil Wittmann. He is the highly dubious present judge on the Jessica Ernst case.

The whole operation world-wide is so dangerous, so untested, so irresponsible, so despotic, that reasons have to be available for largely unresearched, unregulated hydraulic fracturing in the face of its perils.

And reasons are available.

First. Think of Wiebo Ludwig (1941-2012) of Trickle Creek farm, Peace River, Alberta, fighting “Sour Gas” fracking. Sour gas “a potent neurotoxin, has left a legacy of death and destruction….” (Andrew Nikiforuk). Think of the attacks on Sour Gas operations around Trickle Creek. Think of the millions of dollars spent to investigate the attacks on Sour Gas fracking around Trickle Creek.

Think of the threats and attacks in B.C. near Chetwyn against Encana Corporation operations and the millions of dollars spent to investigate.

Think of the RCMP/Encana Corporation, alleged to have created a “false flag” and blowing up an Encana well site to spur on distress – no charges laid. Then think of the millions of dollars spent to investigate, charge, jail, and reinvestigate Wiebo Ludwig. One example of many: “RCMP conducted a four-day [fruitless] search of Trickle Creek (2010) involving over a hundred RCMP officers.” (Wikipedia)

Think of Wiebo Ludwig (but do not speak of him). Think of him driven to desperation by Sour Gas fracking. (But do not speak of him.) Think of his repeated (unanswered) pleas to Alberta government for regulation, for research, inquiry, and investigation of hydraulic fracturing. (But do not speak of him - or risk being accused of sympathizing with lawlessness, terrorist activity.)

Who will speak of the terrorism of Alison Redford, Stephen Harper, Encana Corporation, Gerard Protti and the Alberta Regulators, legislators of Alberta, and – so far – of Neil Wittmann, Chief Justice of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in openly, or tacitly, or passively accepting and/or furthering what many believe is a ruthless attack on the health, the well-being, the security, the privacy, the property, and the reasonable tranquility of honest, law-abiding, innocent Albertans?

Alberta may be seen as a poster-location for the kinds of violation named above. But – in various ways – such invasions are happening widely on the planet. And there is a reason.

LSE professor Lord (Nicholas) Stern and thinktank Carbon Tracker state in a recent Report noted by Damian Carrington in The Guardian (Apr. 19, 2013) that instead of “reducing efforts to develop fossil fuels, the top 200 companies spent $674bn…in 2012 to find and exploit more….” That is about the sum named in a 2006 report that would “pay for a transition to a clean and sustainable economy”.

Stock markets “are betting on countries’ inaction on climate change”, the Report says. Stock markets are creating a Carbon Bubble not unlike the massive mortgage/derivatives/fake credit scandal of 2008. “If all goes well” – I say - countries will insist on internationally agreed Climate Change targets, and the “Carbon Bubble” will burst because of over-valuation of oil, coal, and gas reserves held by fossil fuel companies. If all does not go well – Climate Change will ramp up beyond control.

It may be fair to say the same kinds of ‘investors’ are engaged in the present Carbon Bubble as were engaged in the 2008 blow-up … criminally irresponsible people willing to cause any kinds of destruction in their drive for wealth. The whole fossil fuels Bubble is being driven by greed … by big, irresponsible money.

To meet only present agreed Climate Change targets, it is estimated that at least two-thirds of present so-called fossil fuel ‘reserves’ will have to remain unexploited. But … instead of diminishing the push presently going on for hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’), it will probably intensify the push. As long as the pollutions created by hydraulic fracturing, by the huge environmental disruptions involved in its activities, and by the waste dumps it creates – as long as they aren’t registered by the present ‘Climate Change/global warming’ regulation machineries, the obviously destructive and dirty activity will be called “clean”.

(But science knows the methane gas leaking and leaking into the environment (almost unmeasured and unrecorded) from oil and gas operations is a potent climate changer! Methane is said to be 25 times more potent in relation to Climate Change than carbon dioxide. Who will bell the leaking methane cat?)

Redneck and Redford governments in Ottawa and Alberta (and elsewhere in the world) will attempt to criminalize any who resist “unconventional gas drilling” (‘fracking’). They will provide aid and comfort to corporations like Encana Corporation, and they will work to undermine courts seeking just adjudication of disputes about injury done from hydraulic fracturing. They will do what they can to push for Liquid Natural Gas pipelines – hoping that a Climate Change clampdown on conventional extractions will raise prices on Hydraulically Fractured Gas.

Here is huge field for environmentalists, many of whom are already engaged in the gigantic task of revealing that – however it may (or may not) register on Climate Change measuring devices - the pollution from unconventional gas drilling (hydraulic fracturing, ‘fracking’) is a very, very Dirty Wildcat. Out of (seemingly) nowhere, in the last twenty years at most, one of the dirtiest “mining” operations in history has come into play and into visibility.

The more governments – like the Redneck government in Ottawa and the Redford government in Alberta – are absorbed into private corporate operations and dictated to by those corporations, the more they will resist just demands by citizens and populations for regulation.

The fight is worth it. The outcome certain. People all over the globe will not, ultimately, permit huge corporations and huge governments to desecrate the planet. “The bigger they are”, remember, “the harder they fall.”

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

On the leaders debate, Christy Clark was strong, but as I watched her hitting her negative points time and again it just turned me off. There is only so much hitting the same negative talking points will get you, after that people start to look and say, "What about your record? What about the concerted effort to keep the HST after the people of BC plainly told you they don't want it? Why did nobody bring up the ethnogate scandal of government dollars for private votes? Where were you when BC Hydro was largely privatized at our expense? Where were you when the Liberal government sold BC Rail for two cents (and campaign contributions from CN) after repeatedly telling us they wouldn't?'

It was all very civilized, but if a random sample of the people who live in BC had been given a real voice things would have gone a lot differently.Frankly I was shocked to hear that poor woman caller who has to live on 500 dollars and change - for a whole month, she said she has about 150 dollars for food, and Christy said well, if you expect us to better your condition we have to 'grow the economy' by selling imaginary resources to vultures overseas. It was sickening.She was smarter than I thought, but the whole attack thing to deflect possible examination of her own government's record over the last 12 years just turned me off. You can get up there and smile and sell your ideas, but after 12 years why am I still so shocked about the disgraceful mess this government has bestowed on us in the name of 'globalism'? What is globalism anyway? Well, it is the ability of huge corporations, and huge government owned corporation in the case of China and Malaysia and Korea, to invade BC financially and leave us in the big mess we find ourselves in today.That is what the pipelines are all about, we don't need them and we don't even benefit from them. That is the huge difference between the Liberals and the NDP, that is why I support the NDP. We have seen Christy already in the person of Gordon Campbell, and we need her like we need Fagan from Oliver Twist. Save you the trouble of looking it up, he was guy who 'befriended' starving children in Dickensian London and put them to work for him picking pockets and even worse - you probably saw the movie.

Final point, I go to the sun newspaper online sometimes and have noticed that the comment on issues seem to have disappeared. Remember reading the BC articles and then savouring the comments underneath as they just laid in with what the readers actually though of the article or the issues. Not any more, they have the 'we appreciate your comments' spiel, but there is no longer any way to make comments on most articles. On BC politics. CBC still seems to be okay on that front, though they are a lot harder right than you might think, they know that if anyone caught them rigging the comments sections (which the Globe and Mail does regularly) they would lose all their credibility overnight. My opinion, that is the huge advantage of an open internet: Someone sees what is an obvious lie or prevarication and posts it somewhere, next thing you know other people look at it and publish their own findings and in a short time it becomes a meme, travels all over the world and the sponsor of the original lies loses all credibility. Wonderful thing the internet. Bless you Grant.

Saw an article in msm about an 84 year old former school teacher who left a fortune to the NDP. They dissed her right in article, saying she was an 'odd duck' or some such rubbish. Went on and on.Don't they realize how people are going to view that? My heart went out to her immediately, as did probably 90% of the readers. How can you be so cruel to a defenseless old woman who did what she thought best with her well earned fortune? Unbelievable!http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=dbcf15ac-ee25-483a-88c2-550134dac5b5

If you read Harper's speech on Global Governance for Canada, a long time back. This was Harper's objective, right from day one. Harper even said, Global Governance has been worked on, since 1945. Somebody thought Hitler's Third Reich was a good idea.

Where is our Canadian Democracy? Where are our Civil Rights and Liberties? Our Human Rights are being eroded. Our Freedom of Speech being stifled. People are finding on new's web sites, no adverse comments about Harper are published.

Is Canada Harper's Fourth Reich? Harper has ordered, Police are verboten to speak to Harper's Ministers, without his approval? Harper's own caucus complained of Harper, being a Dictator and a control freak. I have no use for any of them. They are useless, spineless, gutless wonders, knuckling under to a tyrant.

Canadians will have to go back to, the old days of cisterns. We will have to rely on rain, for safe drinking water. We can use the top layer of snow in the winter. That's the way it was on our farm, 60 years ago. However, our farm animals had clean water to drink. The soil wasn't poisoned, so we had crops and vegetable gardens.

Corporations are, bottomless pits of greed. They are rabid with greed, scary. Harper caters to their wishes. At what point, will common sense trump greed?